‘I caught a glimpse of a god’ – Kate Bush’s first four albums reconsidered
Remastered, reissued and rated, some thoughts on The Kick Inside, Lionheart, Never Forever and The Dreaming»
Articles
lukowski has written the following articles:
Mercury Rev - Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited
Southern gothic meets northern gothic on this strange and enjoyable cover record»
Deerhunter - Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?
A clutch of odd songs, made odder by circumstance and symbolism»
Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen on Broadway
Springsteen on Broadway is history’s most elaborate book plug.»
Muse - Simulation Theory
Considerably better than the sort of here-is-some-product-to-justify-a-tour work that a lot of bands toss off 24 years into their career»
R.E.M. - R.E.M. At The BBC
A whole sprawling history to immerse yourself in»
Marissa Nadler - For My Crimes
This is not the best Marissa Nadler record, but it kind of feels like her most perfect»
Low - Double Negative
Guitars dissolve, words dissolve, flesh dissolves and everything becomes pure light»
Mogwai - Kin
It’s still bloody Mogwai, a band never less than magical»
Liars - 1/1
1/1 is much more than a curio»
The Cure @ Hyde Park, 07/07/18
A reminder of what a dazzling back catalogue of pop singles they have»
Belly - Dove
A pretty spectacular accomplishment for a group of semi-retired musicians in their fifties»
Preoccupations - New Material
If you sense that Preoccupations have yet to nail a defining sound, then it’s part of their appeal that they may in fact never be defined by a sound»
of Montreal - White Is Relic/Irrealis Mood
Of Montreal’s career has become a priapic, confusing blur»
U2 - Songs of Experience
The extraordinary thing about Songs of Experience is that it’s really quite good»
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People (25th anniversary edition)
Is Automatic for the People R.E.M.’s best album? It’s a best R.E.M. album»
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Luciferian Towers
A condemnation of this sick world and a dream of a happier new one»
The War On Drugs - A Deeper Understanding
An album to escape into and hide in, not to a record to take on the world»
Y-Not festival: the DiS post-mortem
We came, we saw, we got very muddy»
Arcade Fire - Everything Now
Arcade Fire are not your corporate product»
Radiohead - OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017
An eminently worthwhile reissue for serious Radiohead fans – as if there's another sort»
Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly, James McAlister - Planetarium
Planetarium only occasionally feels absolutely essential, but it never dips below ‘pretty good’»
Gorillaz - Humanz
Less an old-fashioned album, more a very expensive giant mixtape»
Dirty Projectors - Dirty Projectors
Not obviously a record that feels like its creator made it for his mental health – more that he looked at the mess of his life and saw a great new concept»
Rag 'n' Bone Man - Human
The vacuity underpinning these songs is an empty space, begging the question what might have filled it if he’d just been left to his own devices»
Kate Bush - Before the Dawn
Closer to a souvenir of something amazing than something amazing in and of itself»
R.E.M. - Out of Time (25th Anniversary Edition)
After an Eighties spent as the most critically revered band on the planet, R.E.M. finally became global superstars with 1991's Out of Time»
Oasis - Be Here Now (Chasing the Sun edition)
Oasis (the band) would continue, but Oasis (the legend) died with this album»
David Bowie - The Gouster/The Man Who Fell to Earth (soundtrack)
America reflected crazily back at itself, though a cracked lens»
Preoccupations - Preoccupations
A strange and potent cocktail»